EU overseas affairs chief Josep Borrell has spoken out in opposition to a visa ban for all Russians travelling to Europe.
“To forbid entrance to all Russians shouldn’t be a good suggestion,” he stated on Monday at a convention in Spain. “Greater than 300,000 Russians have [fled] their nation. Are we going to shut the door to those Russians?”
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EU leaders are set to fulfill subsequent week to debate the topic after Finland, Estonia, and the Czech Republic referred to as for an EU-wide visa ban for Russian vacationers final week.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky additionally put his weight behind the ban. However the Biden administration cautioned in opposition to it, and in a press release, the state division famous it’s “essential to attract a line between the actions of the Russian authorities and its insurance policies in Ukraine and the folks of Russia”.
The European Fee has up to now not provided any official steering on the difficulty, however some EU members, together with the Czech Republic, the present holder of the rotating EU presidency and Latvia, have suspended visas for Russians.
“The Czech Republic will search to droop the EU’s visa facilitation agreements with Russia and Belarus,” Czech minister of overseas affairs Jan Lipavský tweeted on Monday.
Whereas EU international locations have banned direct air journey from Russia, limiting the variety of vacationers reaching EU capitals, St Petersburg is barely 300km from the Finnish capital and Russians can nonetheless journey to Estonia and Finland and attain Europe from there.
Since Covid restrictions on journey have been lifted, Russian border crossings to Finland have elevated by between 10 and 30 p.c in comparison with spring, Finnish authorities officers have stated.
However final week, German chancellor Olaf Scholz got here out in opposition to issuing blanket bans as the overall exclusion of Russian vacationers would backfire and hurt president Vladimir Putin’s opponents.
Scholz was later joined in opposition by his counterparts in Greece and Cyprus, each well-liked vacationer locations for Russians travelling overseas.
The visa ban is anticipated to be mentioned at subsequent week’s assembly of ministers in Prague.
